One day Brandon had two puppies, one was usually happy and the other had a gloomy face. One evening he went visiting his grandfather and as they were talking, the puppies decided to enter inside a room that was next to where they were seated.
When the happy puppy entered the room, it can out wagging its tail but when the gloomy faced puppy entered the room it came out growling. Brandon was very surprised that a similar incident would cause very different reactions to the puppies. So he decided to go and see what was in the room that the puppies had seen. When they entered, they found that the room was full of mirrors, when the happy puppy had entered the room, it saw hundreds of happy puppies but when the melancholic puppy entered the room, it saw hundreds of angry puppies, hence the reaction. The grandfather looked at Brandon straight in the eye and told him that your eyes always see a reflection of who you are in others.
This scenario is very insightful because it teaches us that many a time we want others to change while we are the problem. In relationships, we often think that it would be better if the other person changed. In our work places, we think that people have issues because we measure them against our faulty standards. In the society, we think that the enemy is always the one who is not on our side. Besides, we always talk about others, escalating their shortcomings so that we may paint a blurry picture of who they are. We always think that the world has 99 problems but we are not one of them. That is a sad reality of humanity; we need to learn that there is more than enough goodness that we can learn from others. The melancholic puppy never thought that it was the one with the problems. Instead, it shot out angry without looking again and realizing that, the mirror was reflecting itself.
The world is full of “judges” who are ready to execute harsh judgment. So what should your response be? Simple. Kill them with kindness. It ironic that people will judge you as a finished product, but expect you to judge them as ‘Work In Progress’. We ought to learn that if we do not appreciate the goodness in people, we should never be ready to point out their mistakes. There are so many people who think that the world around them is very ugly, they need to take off the glasses of pride and first shed off their own ugliness. Never be an expert in what you only spectate; sometimes getting your hands into it teaches your mouth a different lesson. Hence, we need to know that the world reflects its beauty to the degree of how we perceive it. We should aim to change ourselves more than we expect the world to change to enable us to see its beauty. Obama said that we should start by being the change we want to see in the world. Cheers to the ATB family.
Photo credit: http://officialhuskylovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Sad-VS-Happy.jpg
